Sloppy, careless and poor are all words that could be used to describe the first five minutes of play by IU men’s basketball against Houston Baptist on Saturday afternoon.
The Hoosiers missed their first five shots of the game and led just 5-4 at the first media timeout. It took about three more minutes after that for IU’s offense to start clicking, but once it did, the Hoosiers buried the Huskies.
After being down two at the 12-minute mark, an eight-to-zero run in a one-minute span put IU ahead of its Southland Conference opponent. The Hoosiers carried that momentum throughout the entire game and downed the Huskies 103-61 at Assembly Hall.
IU scored 61 points in the second half and junior guard Robert Johnson said they focused on turning stops on defense into points in order to do so.
“We just decided to really sit down and get stops on defense and string stops together,” Johnson said. “When we do that it allows us to get out in transition and get easy baskets and I think it translated well for us.”
The Hoosiers got contributions from all over the court with five players scoring in double figures. Junior guard James Blackmon Jr. led the way with 18 points, and Johnson added 16 of his own. Sophomore forward Juwan Morgan finished with 13.
Morgan had made his last 12 field goals in the last two games coming into the matchup. He started the afternoon strong by draining his first two but a missed 3-pointer to start the second half ended his streak at 14. The sophomore from Waynesville, Missouri, finished the night four-for-five from the field, but his 14 straight makes set a new IU record.
The bench racked up 37 points. Freshman guard duo Curtis Jones and Devonte Green combined for 19 points to lead the reserves. The IU bench has outscored its opponents 100-30 in the last three games.
Junior forward Freddie McSwain finished with a career-high eight points, and IU Coach Tom Crean attributed McSwain’s performance Saturday to the quality week he had during practice.
“He had a very good week. He improved this week and strung good days together,” Crean said. “I think the last couple weeks probably hurt a guy like that as much as anyone else because we didn’t get that full-throttle practice time. He works very hard, and I was very happy for him, and he earned it so hopefully he continues to stay on that path.”
Turnovers had been a problem recently for IU, averaging more than 17 per game. IU cut that number to 12 on Saturday afternoon.
After having four games in eight days the previous week, the Hoosiers had just one contest to worry about this week. Morgan said the team really got after one another during practice to improve their play.
“We hit all the little things that even in those stretch of games there was a lot of great things we did, but there’s a lot of things we can work on,” Morgan said. “We have to keep getting better every day and not let a day goes by because you either get better or you get worse, you never stay the same.”
The last three opponents IU has faced are all ranked 274 or below out of 351 Division I teams, according to KenPom.
IU will have to wait another full week before getting back into action when it plays a much more impressive opponent in Butler at the Crossroads Classic at 5 p.m. Dec. 17 in Indianapolis.
